The Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is one of the more enticing transformer style Windows 8 convertibles. It runs on a full Intel Core i5 ULV CPU and it has a detachable dock with the expected excellent Lenovo keyboard and trackpad. The 11.6" IPS full HD 400 nit display is thing of beauty and even those tiny Zinio magazine fonts are readable. The tablet has a dual digitizer with 10 point capacitive multi-touch and an active Wacom pen for precise drawing and note taking.

Lenovo says the ThinkPad Helix, due out in February or March of this year, will also be available with an Intel Core i7 (perhaps an i3 as well). Given the early availability date and CPU power consumption stated by Lenovo product folks who gave us a private tour at CES 2013, we're guessing this is third generation Ivy Bridge and not the new lower power ULV CPU that will appear in the Lenovo IdeaPad 11S in May 2013. The dock has fans built-in, and when docked, the CPU runs at full 17 watts and it drops down to 13 watts when undocked (for cooling reasons).

The dock adds USB 3.0 ports and the trackpad is Lenovo's new 5 button equivalent buttonless trackpad (three buttons up top replace the hardware buttons for the eraser stick style pointer embedded in the keyboard). There a 3G/4G LTE option with SIM card slot and though we stated there's an SD card slot in our video, I believe there is no SD card slot. The ThinkPad Helix has NFC, RJ45 Ethernet and a mini DisplayPort.

The tablet and keyboard dock (dock included with purchase) each offer a claimed 5 hours of battery life for a total of 10 hours. The tablet itself weighs 2 lbs, and the tablet plus dock weigh a hefty 3.7 lbs. The machine comes with 4 gigs of DDR3 RAM and a 128 or 256 gig SSD. The price should start around $1,499 for the tablet plus dock.